TiVo’s support for iPod and PSP portends battle

TiVo's latest move challenges the notion that users should have to pay for …

Today TiVo announced that its TiVoToGo service, which allows owners of Series 2 TiVos to transfer shows to laptops and select mobile devices, will soon also support transferring shows to the (video) iPod and Sony's PSP. The company is now testing its expanded service options and plans on releasing the updates sometime in early 2006.

"The increasing popularity of mobile devices for viewing video such as Apple's iPod and the PSP device demonstrate the enormous consumer demand for entertainment on the go," said Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo. "By enhancing our TiVoToGo feature, we're making it easy for consumers to enjoy the TV shows they want to watch right from their iPod or PSP -- whenever and wherever they want."

The update won't be free, however. No pricing has been announced, but TiVo said that the software necessary to pair content with either the PSP or the iPod will be "low-cost." In comparison, Apple's iTunes application is free, while Sony charges circa US$20 for the PSP Media Manager.

This move does not mean that TiVo is working with either Apple or Sony. For example, files transferred to the iPod will not have Apple's DRM. To stave off piracy, however, TiVo will be adding traceable watermarking to the update in order to discourage trading recorded content online. This comes as no surprise, as TiVo already had to obtain FCC approval for its original TiVoToGo DRM, and the company would be heavily scrutinized if they did not make some effort at protecting content with this service expansion.

They call it "chagrin"

How will the content industry react? Privately, I expect many of the big players are fuming. We can probably add Steve Jobs to the hoppin' mad list, because TiVo is not only looking to cash in on the popularity of the iPod, but they're doing it both without Apple's permission and right in the face of Apple's iTunes Music Store. Apple may sell a few more iPods as a result, but Apple's complete business model centrally locates the iTunes Music Store in the user experience. We've all heard the ruminations on how Apple makes so very little off of music and video sales. Their stature and stock price suggest otherwise. So do the actions of the content industry.

Indeed, as companies like Disney and NBC are venturing into ways to monetize content (a good sign that the business is not the black hole people think it is), TiVo is hoping to position itself as a product that can kill two birds with one stone. Get access to shows you can't normally watch by recording them with a DVR, and tap into the two most highly-visible mobile players out there and say, "hey, look, you don't have to pay for that show."

On the one hand, we have studios, technology companies, and politicians trying to convince us that TV is not only something that you pay for (unless you're the bunny ears type), but something that you pay even more for if you miss an original broadcast. The hope is that we'll look at $0.99 and $1.99 price tags on shows and think, "that's convenient, that's fair." On the other hand, those of us with DVRs find the idea of paying more for a TV show ridiculous. While it angers certain people when I do this, let me point out that a $60 cable+TiVo bill can get you a few hundred channels beyond the big networks, and something to the tune of 720 hours of content (more if you have dual tuners), but in Appleland, it only gets you 30 shows. There's much more to this comparison, but you get point: most of us already pay for TV, and not everyone wants to pay for select shows twice.

"You get all this for the low low price..."

The executives at TiVo know that their monthly service fee is a big turn-off to users, but they could soften the blow by making overt comparisons to the cost of on demand video in its various forms. Think, "Watch up to 80 hours of recorded television for less than the cost of seven hours from Apple!" Of course, TiVo doesn't siphon off commercials, but commercials haven't proven detrimental to DVRs just yet.

For TiVo, there's promise, but the timing couldn't be worse. If this service doesn't launch until the first quarter of 2006, it may spur few sales during a time when most households are paying off the financial aftermath of the holiday season. This would have been a great feature to roll out yesterday, so to speak.

Nevertheless, the move is going to ruffle feathers, because it raises the question at an inopportune time for the content industry: do we really have to pay for what you give away largely for free? Not to worry, though: Big Content has thought this through. Technologies like the Broadcast Flag and proposed laws such as the Analog Content Security Preservation Act of 2005 want to give Big Content the ability to block your ability to record shows, make copies, and transfer them. And as I've said many times before, while the justification is always the boogeyman of piracy, the true motivation is money. If they get their way, we won't be talking about "pay to play," but "pay per play."

Ken Fisher / Ken is the founder & Editor-in-Chief of Ars Technica. A veteran of the IT industry and a scholar of antiquity, Ken studies the emergence of intellectual property regimes and their effects on culture and innovation.